Georgian Court University Introduces Digital Media Studies

Steve Adubato sits down with Janice Warner, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Business and Digital Media at Georgian Court University, to hear why she decided to incorporate digital media studies into the business school and how multimedia and communications can go hand in hand with business and e-commerce.

8/15/17 #2067

Excerpt:

"Welcome to One On One. I'm Steve Adubato. We are talking to a fascinating guest for the first time. She is Doctor Janice Warner, Dean, the School of Business and Digital Media, Georgian Court University. We talk to fascinating guests all the time, but you are here for the first time. Now as someone who is fascinated by business and leadership and has taught at a few institutions of higher learning in the area of business, I'm thinking "Wait a minute! Isn't it just a school of business?!" Where does this whole social media digital thing come in? Talk about it. Yes, so I mean as somebody who is pretty active in the business community, I just noticed that if you wanted to get ahead, you really had to understand about technology, social media, and digital marketing. And so our students were interested in that as well. I wanted to give them more opportunity so we started working with the graphic design department and the digital communication department which are part of arts and sciences. I said "Come on over, we can do a lot more together. We can work on getting the right technology together, we can work on programs together". And they said "sure"? They did for sure. In higher ed? Really? Yes. Well, we have a very collaborative team down at Georgian Court. My colleagues are just terrific. So, I brought it up to the provost first, after talking to some of my colleagues and then we talked to the dean, and it just made a lot of sense. And so, they came on over two years ago. But before that, we started working on a minor in social media and then we're working on more and more things together. So Doctor, let's do this. Let's break it down. A student comes out of the program. He or she has what kind of skills going out into the marketplace? Well, our students do major in their specific things that they are most interested in, so we do have surprisingly enough in our school of business and digital media, a BFA in graphic design and multimedia. Is that right? Yes, we brought that over. But many of them will also minor in marketing or minor in the social media marketing. And so they have a little bit of both. They have the passion that they followed, so they're very creative. They can create really great work, but they also know the business side and they're finding opportunities. Many also go on independently and start their own businesses, have their own professional practices. Do you sense..."